Week 4 April 2025, Devotion Part 2

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.   Luke 9:23

“Follow me.” Forget for now the little habits. Do form the one big habit of looking straight to Christ. How does a baby learn to walk except by walking, enticed by the example and cheers of a confident parent? We do not banish the wobbling wonder to the playpen until he has mastered textbooks on anatomy and Olympic competition. It is just as absurd to try to reason out the great challenge of Christ in the vacuum of conceptualized thinking that harps on the theme, If only…” The “if “ that Jesus throws into the equation is practical: “Follow me.”

To follow in the steadying rhythm of Christ’s footsteps and appointments takes constant exercise of will. We learn to identify with the Master to the exclusion of all lesser loyalties. The daily cross speaks of consecration that requires costly confrontation and terminal obedience. In the ancient world of harsh Roman rule, the cross was not a dainty piece of jewelry, but a cruel instrument of execution. The daily exercise of Christ’s companionship makes for the momentum that carries us gracefully from one death-and-resurrection cycle to the next.  Part 2 of 2

Comment: If the word “cross-examination” was a bit of a turn-off, how about the more familiar “cross-cultural”?  It only bothers racists, but may alarm many when penitents observe Holy Week by having themselves nailed to a cross.  Their church forbids it, but catholic Filipinos of a certain region have sterile nails driven into their hands and feet, while dozens of devout onlookers expect to have their prayers answered through those hanging on the cross for several minutes. Their star is the man who’s done it for 35 years. The officially sanctioned version of penitence is veneration of the crucifix. “By kissing it while kneeling, we are paying the highest honor to our Lord’s cross as the instrument of our salvation.”  In soothing contrast to non-lethal crucifixions, some hail Peeps as their favorite “marshmallow Easter icon.”  The sugary treat became non-lethal last year when cancer-causing Red Dye 3 was removed from it. Some readers may well see red by now because I have so far completely skirted the issue of cross-bearing.  My solid excuse?  Don’t come after this writer, since Luke’s emphasis was on Jesus who urged all  to come after Him.  Helpful Paul defines God’s highest purpose for the believer in Romans 8:28-29, namely “to become conformed to the image of His Son.”  As God’s Word incarnate, Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days and was starving for bread, when Satan showed up fiercely intent to keep Him from going to the cross.  Our Savior shot down his honey-coated hypocrisy by resolutely repeating “It is written,” with quotes from Deuteronomy.  Are we frequently fasting from reading the Bible, and more crucially still, from meditating on its transforming truths?  True to the Lord’s Prayer, we eat our daily food to keep our stomach happy.  But it’s only in the process of digestion that the nutrients are released.  So it is with spiritual food that fattens our soul and steels our will to obey Christ as He lived in submission to His Father. The byproduct is always unimaginable joy, developed in the process of sanctification.  Luke 9